
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta name="description" content="French Lessons">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

<title>Articles de La Guinguette - 2008 - avril - culture</title>
           <link href="../../style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

<style type="text/css">
p {
    color: Black;
}
</style>

</head>

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" background="../back.gif" text="#008000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#0000FF">

<a href="index.html"><img src="../../up.gif" alt="up" width="36" height="18"></a><br>

<h1>Articles de La Guinguette - 2008 - avril - culture</h1>

<table border="1">
<tr><td>Titre</td>                             <td>Lire: J.M.G Le Cl&eacute;zio          </td></tr>
<tr><td>Ann&eacute;e</td>                      <td>2008          </td></tr>
<tr><td>Mois</td>                              <td>avril         </td></tr>
<tr><td>Cat&eacute;gorie</td>                  <td>culture      </td></tr>
<tr><td>Traducteur</td>                        <td>Alistair Mills</td></tr>
<tr><td>Derni&egrave;re mise &agrave; jour</td><td>03 April 2008</td></tr>
</table>
<br>
<a title="chercher" href="_zoom/search.php">Chercher les articles</a><br>
<br>

<hr>

<p>Reading: J.M.G Le Cl&eacute;zio</p>
<p>Jean-Marie  Gustave Le Cl&eacute;zio was born into a family originating from Brittany,  France, Great Britain, and Maurice Island.&nbsp; Born in 1940, he published his first novel <em>Le Proc&egrave;s-verbal</em> at the age of 23 for  which he received the Renaudot award.&nbsp; In  1980, he published <em>Desert</em>, the saga  of a young woman who was a descendant of the Tuareg.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s considered his best work.&nbsp; Le Cl&eacute;zio has also written essays about  several nomadic civilizations with which he shared experiences (Panamanian  Indians, Moroccan Berbers).&nbsp; Author of  about thirty works, he is considered to be a major author who is studied in  school textbooks.&nbsp; His books express the  beauty of communication among people.</p>
<p>He  describes his ideal writing method:</p>
<p>&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s  what you have to do: You have to leave for the countryside, as an amateur  painter would do, with a big piece of paper and a pen.&nbsp; Choose a desert setting, in a valley embedded  between the mountains.&nbsp; Sit on a rock and  take a good, long look around.&nbsp; Then,  once you have really looked around, take your piece of paper and describe the  words that you have seen.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s a  pleasure to travel the world in the footsteps of Le Cl&eacute;zio.&nbsp; He leads us into the heart of the  countryside, into the sensuality of colours and scents.&nbsp; Through his eyes, we are touched by a sort of  elegance called &ldquo;communication&rdquo;.&nbsp; &ldquo;I  never looked for anything but that in writing...to communicate with others,&rdquo; he  says.</p>
<p>His  profound understanding of the world&rsquo;s peoples and languages does not depart  from the French language.&nbsp; </p>
<p>&ldquo;For me, as  an islander, as someone who&rsquo;s at the edge of the sea watching the freighters  pass, who&rsquo;s hanging around the ports, like a man who walks along a boulevard who  is neither from the neighbourhood nor the city, but is from all the neighbourhoods  and all the cities, the French language is my only country, the only place  where I live.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The nomadic  life, voluntary or not, is not synonymous with detaching from one&rsquo;s roots.&nbsp; Le Cl&eacute;zio understands that one holds his  roots within.</p>
<p>The Gold Seeker </p>
<p>This novel was  published in 1985.&nbsp; Le Cl&eacute;zio draws  inspiration from the life of his paternal grandfather on Maurice Island  in the 19<sup>th</sup> century. He integrates within it a big dream of a treasure  hunt, which takes shape as a test of manhood, a sort of Odyssey.&nbsp; </p>
<p>It all  begins in Alexis&rsquo; childhood.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s a  child whose father is in great financial difficulty, whose mother is sick,  whose older sister, Laure, whom he loves dearly, leads a depressing life. Their  distress suddenly worsens following a hurricane.&nbsp; The house is submerged in water.&nbsp; Then, the father dies, leaving Alexis with a  nonsensical plan as his only inheritance: a treasure map of a famous  corsair.&nbsp; So, Alexis leaves &ldquo;to end the  dream, so that life can begin.&rdquo;</p>
<p>At the  beginning of the novel, it&rsquo;s paradise, a life in the wild cradled by the sound  of the waves.&nbsp; The writing is superb.</p>
<p>&ldquo;As far  back as I can remember I could hear sound of the ocean.&nbsp; Intermingling with the wind through the  needles of the filaos trees, a wind which didn&rsquo;t stop, even when you were far  from the shore, and you walked towards the cane fields.&nbsp; This sound cradled my childhood.&nbsp; I hear it now, deep inside of me, and I take  it wherever I go.&nbsp; The slow, unremitting  sound of the waves in the distance, which break against the coral reef and have  as their final resting place the sands of Black River.&nbsp; Not a day went by that I didn&rsquo;t go to the sea,  not a night went by that I wouldn&rsquo;t awake, my back wet with sweat, sitting in  my camp bed, pushing aside the mosquito net, trying to make out the ocean,  feeling anxious and filled with a desire which I didn&rsquo;t understand.&nbsp; I think of her like a real person, and in the  darkness, all of my senses are awakened to hear more clearly what&rsquo;s happening,  to receive it better.&nbsp; Huge waves pouncing  on the reefs, collapsing in the lagoon, a sound which makes the earth and air  vibrate like a boiler.&nbsp; I hear it, it  moves, it breathes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Led by the sensuality which unites him to the  elements, Alexis is at one with nature.&nbsp;  Like Ulysses, he takes a long voyage filled with encounters, sometimes  wonderful, sometimes hideous, which contribute in revealing to him the strength  and the purity of his heart.</p>
<p>Alexis obeys his father&rsquo;s strict and protective  authority in a country colonized by whites, where racism is commonplace.&nbsp; Despite it all, he makes friends with a black  boy, Denis, who&rsquo;s a little older than he. His parents&rsquo; restrictions don&rsquo;t keep  him from leaving the house early to follow his friend Denis all day long, while  his mother, cultivated, intelligent, and gentle, is too ill to teach him.&nbsp; </p>
<p>&ldquo;Denis&rsquo; lessons are the most beautiful.&nbsp; He teaches me about the sky, the sea, the  caverns at the foot of the mountains, the uncultivated fields where we run  together in the summer between the black pyramids of the Creole walls.&nbsp; Sometimes we leave at dawn while the mountain  tops are still covered with mist, and while the sea&rsquo;s low tide reveals its  reefs from afar.&nbsp; We cross through the aloe  fields, along the narrow, quiet paths.&nbsp; Denis  walks in front.&nbsp; I see his tall silhouette,  thin and flexible, which moves forward as if he were dancing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Later on, Alexis meets Ouma, his companion  during a dry period in his life.&nbsp; She  teaches him how to fish, to build a fire, to love, and to leave without turning  back.</p>
<p>&ldquo;As supple and quick as an animal, she slips  between the bushes, she jumps from rock to rock at the base of the valley.&nbsp; Standing next to the old tamarind tree, I see  her again for a moment, scaling the side of the hill like a young wild goat.&nbsp; She doesn&rsquo;t turn back, doesn&rsquo;t stop.&nbsp; She walks towards the mountain, towards Lubin  mountain. She disappears in the shadow which covers the western slopes. I hear  my heart beating, and my thoughts move slowly.&nbsp;  A more terrifying solitude comes back to English Bay.&nbsp; Seated near my camp, facing west, I see the  shadows coming closer.&nbsp; And thus, the  days are driving me even closer to my dream. What I am searching for appears to  me more each day with a force that fills me with happiness.&nbsp; From sunrise until dark, I walk through the  valley, looking for points of reference, for clues.&nbsp; The dazzling sun which comes before the  winter rains, the cries of sea birds, the gusts of wind from the northwest  create in me a sort of intoxication.&rdquo;</p>
<p>But in the intertwining of man and nature, man  wins in harmony and loses in adversity.&nbsp;  There are too many difficulties, miseries, wars, savageries in Alexis&rsquo;  path.&nbsp; Nature has the last word which man  welcomes.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s as powerless on the first  page as on the last. </p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s night time now.&nbsp; I hear deep within the vivid sound of the sea  coming.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s with these words that The Gold Seeker closes.</p>
<p>$Id: 2008_04_cul.html 66 2008-11-29 19:27:02Z csshab $</p>


<hr>
<h1>Notes</h1>
<p>With questions or for more information, please contact Alistair Mills (<a href="mailto:alistair.mills@btinternet.com">alistair.mills@btinternet.com</a>)<br>
Updated 03 April 2008</p>


    <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer"><img
        src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401-blue"
        alt="Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional" height="31" width="88"></a>

<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct = "UA-2273668-1";
urchinTracker();
</script>


</body>
</html>
